The Obama camp has managed to violate almost every tenet of crisis communications – starting with Rule No. 1: Get all the information out quickly, accurately and fully.

It’s imperative that reporters don’t learn something from a third party that you could have told them. And, in the era of nonstop news, “quickly” means within 24 hours. Any longer, and reporters begin to get frustrated (they’re under pressure from their editors) and feel that you’re stonewalling them. And why would you stonewall unless you were hiding something?

Powers points out that the Obama teamâ€™s innocence in the matter is readily apparent and they had no need to procrastinate with details or shift communication methods so awkwardly. Powers details how inconsistent answers and a poorly managed approach have turned what should have been a one or two day news story into a week-long headache.

Undoubtedly, the Obama team could have handled the Blago matter with more finesse. But I think they were caught off guard by a media that has already switched from covering the young, inspiring candidate to covering a sitting president. Obama can no longer expect much benefit of the doubt. Heâ€™s not challenging power. He is power.

Given what we know about Obama, I doubt he will let his team make these kinds of communication mistakes again. The playing field has changed. Team Obama now has to change with it.

Who would have thought for a second that this story would dog team Obama when Blago himself in the FBI tapes exonerates them? Only a hyper caffinated media, and hyper gullible audience could make something out of this. It is so disengenuis of the media to act tough on this so they can claim they’re “balanced” when they know it’s all complete and utter nonsense. Has the media been tough enough on Obama now so they can counter the liberal media accusations? That’s what they’re after. It’s all a dumb show for the ignorant. Have a great time.

I agree with you Alan. To the extent that there’s any Obama story here, the story is that they didn’t handle this very well. It’s disappointing that whoever’s running the PR isn’t smart enough to understand that evasiveness can cause problems.

There was no reason for anyone in the Obama camp to obscure the fact that the campaign had been in contact with the guy, because it was to be expected under the circumstances. The campaign and the candidate focused too much on framing their statements to put distance between them and Blago. Eventually they got around to the right answer, which is that of course there was contact because there had to be under the circumstances, and they are confident that no one on the team was involved in the illegal dealings.

Now that Obama is going to be President, the staff (and Obama) need to do better than to come up with the right answer on their 2nd or 3rd swing. If they can’t put out most of the fires with the 1st squirt, they’ll get gobbled up once Obama’s @ss sits on the throne.

Substantively, I don’ there’s anything to this…I don’t think Obama and his folks were involved in the sale of the seat, unless they got wind of it and actually helped to put the hammer down on Blago. But the reason the story lingered is because they failed to be clear and forthcoming from the get-go. So for me the story is not about Team Obama’s alleged involvement. The story is that they fumbled a chipshot.

I hardly think Rahm Emmanuel or David Axelrod or many of the other core members of Obama’s team are the sort who can be “caught off guard” by much of anything, from a communications standpoint.

In this case, they were — and are — faced with a challenge the true extent of which only Patrick Fitzgerald knows, and he’s not telling.

The question Obama had to ask himself, first, was who among my staff, my high-profile Chicago and union supporters might have done something wrong, and who among them might have done or said something that might appear to be wrong (or “inappropriate”) to others.

That’s not an easy question to ask or answer. Obama and his team are, to a large extent, flying blind.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

NOTE TO COMMENTERS:

You must ALWAYS fill in the two word CAPTCHA below to submit a comment. And if this is your first time commenting on Donklephant, it will be held in a moderation queue for approval. Please don't resubmit the same comment a couple times. We'll get around to moderating it soon enough.

Also, sometimes even if you've commented before, it may still get placed in a moderation queue and/or sent to the spam folder. If it's just in moderation queue, it'll be published, but it may be deleted if it lands in the spam folder. My apologies if this happens but there are some keywords that push it into the spam folder.

One last note, we will not tolerate comments that disparage people based on age, sex, handicap, race, color, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. We reserve the right to delete these comments and ban the people who make them from ever commenting here again.

Thanks for understanding and have a pleasurable commenting experience.